The weather has been so absolutely beautiful the past few days that we have been enjoying a lot of time outside. Today, before supper our little family (Daddy, Mama, three girls, two cats, and a dog) headed out on a walk through our forest in search of our boundary lines that Dan has been marking out.As we walked, we enjoyed the sounds of squirrels calling to each other, the stream gurgling near by, and the branches cracking underfoot. At one point Aneliese stopped to say, “this is so nice, I am just taking a deep breath.”. My thoughts exactly. We are so blessed by this little bit of land that we have been given to care for.

Near one of our boundaries is a bit of a clearing with small “Christmas Trees”. It’s delightful to discover a tree smaller than ones self. These trees are now the girls growing trees. They each chose one and we marked them so as to find them again. And each time we will see how they grow in comparison to their trees. (Kathleen will have to choose hers later!) This simple spontaneous activity today was meaningful to me because it spoke of setting down roots. I have no way of knowing where the future could lead to and we try to be open to anything, but this is the first place in which we have lived that we intend to remain indefinitely. It’s the first place that we have put down roots that did something more than skimmed the surface.

And today we chose trees to grow with…